Whats the deal with Lyman and Linotype?

[ShooterAZ]

In the Lyman reloading manual (not cast bullet handbook), many, many loads are shown as cast in linotype. Some rifle calibers are specifically recommended to use linotype. My understanding is that it casts beautifully, but is very brittle and not suitable for hunting for that reason.

They even show lino used in .38 Special wadcutter loads. Are bullets cast from lino more accurate? I imagine trying to size those boolits would be a chore unto itself. I have never tried casting straight lino, and have been mixing in ratios with pure lead 1/1 1/2 1/3 etc. What are your experiences with linotype?

[onesonek]

In the Lyman reloading manual (not cast bullet handbook), many, many loads are shown as cast in linotype. Some rifle calibers are specifically recommended to use linotype. My understanding is that it casts beautifully, but is very brittle and not suitable for hunting for that reason.

They even show lino used in .38 Special wadcutter loads. Are bullets cast from lino more accurate?

Hard and brittle it is, but shattering depnds highly on speed and how the critter is hit.
Then each gun has it's own like's. Alloy's will vary in accuracy, depencding on a whole host of things. Fit, pressure, come to mind first.

[clodhopper]

Linotype used to be cheap, and easy to get.
The printing world phased out liontype when it went to offset printing, now it's going to lazerjet.

[runfiverun]

you read the new one.?

[Larry Gibson]

The #4 Lyman CBH has a few magnum handgun bullets listed with linotype and a few rifle bullets (mostly RCBS Moulds). The majority of bullets used are cast with #2 alloy (go figure:shock:) with a 10-1 alloy as the next most used.

Larry Gibson

[captaint]

Well, I think I'll forego hunting with Lino boolits just the same. My hunting boolits will be more like 50/50 WW & Pb with a gas check on their little bottoms. Guess my shooting isn't good enough to get by with NO expansion. enjoy Mike

[HangFireW8]

The NRA did some testing decades ago and found that lino was more accurate then the other alloys they tested, using NRA 50/50 anyway.

As stated here lino was cheap and available at the time, so Lyman ran with it.

The accuracy differences were small and for 38 you would need a ransom rest to tell the difference. I'm thinking these results could be duplicated or improved upon today using other alloys but I'm not going to burn up all my lino finding out.

HF

[MBTcustom]

My hunting boolits will be more like 50/50 WW & Pb with a gas check on their little bottoms.
Personally, I want a little more than .75% antimony and zero tin. (I have tested many samples of WW alloy from all over and I get approximately 1.5% Sb and 98% Pb and maybe .5% various trash)
My hunting lead is 94% Pb, 3.5%Sb, and 2.5% Tin. This makes a semi-soft alloy that can be pushed hard but still smooshes fairly easy on game.
If you cut 50/50 WW and pure, you basically have an almost pure alloy exept for 1% trash that is mostly antimony but you will also have trace amounts of copper, gold, calcium, zinc, nickle, sulfer, etc. etc.
I dont say this because I read it somewhere, I actually tested the material with the machine we use at my day-job to test solder for purity. It can sense an exact percentage of what is in an alloy accurately down to .01%. I was amazed by how much stuff was in WW alloy. No wonder I sometimes got a batch that shot better than others!
I think that the WW manufacturers quit putting tin in their WWs a long time ago. Why would they burn the extra expense?

[ShooterAZ]

Well, I now have 80 pounds of lino from rotometals. I'm going to mix it with the 200+ pounds of roofing lead I recently scored. I'm going to try some straight just for grins (not for hunting).

[MBTcustom]

Well, I now have 80 pounds of lino from rotometals. I'm going to mix it with the 200+ pounds of roofing lead I recently scored.
If you do that and add 10Lb. of 63/37 solder, you will get pretty close to
93.4% Lead
3.28% Tin
3.31% Antimony
Which is a very nicely balanced alloy.
If you just add 200Lb. of pure, your going to get some antimony wash in your barrel, and you'll be a little on the brittle side, but it will work pretty well and you will definitely conserve that expensive Linotype!
You realy should think about throwing in a certain amount of tin.
Keep both tin and antimony under 4%, and keep your tin 1/2% under your antimony, and you will have a kickin' alloy.
Remember that you have an exact idea of what you have right now. Preserve that knowledge very carefully! Weigh out your components exactly with good quality scales before you smelt so that you preserve the knowledge of what you have. It only takes one time just throwing stuff together and you no longer know what you have and are swimming around in the dark guessing at how much % you have of what. It realy sucks when you find an alloy that works realy, realy well and you have no idea what you did to get there and what's worse, you dont know what is in each of the ten piles of lead that you have, so you couldn't mix up another batch exactly the same if your life depended on it.
This happened to me. I decided that PP boolits realy care how hard the boolit core is, so I thought I should start caring about what my alloy is. I ended up blending together everything I had into three large batches and having each one tested so that I could decide how to mix them in order to get a certain result.
Never again!!!!!!!!!
I bought some good scales and I keep close tabs on what I have and what is in each batch.
I mixed a new batch, weighing everything with extreme care, and then I had the final result tested. I found that by carefully blending the alloys by weight, I was able to accurately predict the alloy content of the final batch.
Good luck!